Thursday, December 26, 2013

Frontier Order!

My order was fairly small this month. I didn't need or order as much as I normally do. This month I got:

Ecover dishwasher powder
Ecos laundry soap
Burt's Bees Calming baby lotion
Yummy Earth organic suckers (for Tae) and organic vitamin C drops (hubby loves these things)
Frontier "Mama Garlic" organic seasoning (smells delicious and can't wait to use it!)

Sunday, December 22, 2013

Christmas Pictures!

I have to brag a little about my friend Cassie. I've known her for about 2 years now and she is such a sweet and caring person. She is also great at taking photos. The pictures on my blog are ones that she took and we just recently had some Christmas pictures taken of the girls with her. Her prices are totally reasonable and she is great with kiddos and pretty quick at taking memorable pictures. If you live in the Oklahoma City metro area, you should definitely check her out. You can find CD Photography on Facebook or on her website here.

 





Tuesday, December 10, 2013

Hensley: 6 months!

Weight: I think we have to be close to 20lbs by now! It's hard to get an accurate weight on her because we just have a regular scale. She is still a short little muffin though.

Food: Obviously she is having no problems growing on mommy's milk! She seems to be acquiring the food readiness cues. She is able to sit unassisted and she has a killer pincer grasp. I think she may be losing her tongue thrust reflex and she is becoming a little more interested in what we are eating/drinking. I'm not ready to rush it though. I want to make sure that her tummy is good and developed and capable of handling table foods. Maybe in a month or so we will put a few dices of avocado in front of her to see what she does, but right now she is growing just fine without anything other than breast milk!

Clothes: 6 month clothes are getting a little tight! 9 months fit her pretty good and she is fitting into some 12 month clothes (gah!). I just can't believe how big she is. Tae always wore exactly what her age was. She was in 12 month clothes AT 12 months. Hensley's closet consists of 6, 9, 12, and even 18 month clothes and she is only 6 months old!

 Sleep: We have been having a few hiccups in our sleeping since last month. Her naps are pretty much the same. Usually 2-3 naps during the day. Two short naps (about an hour long) and then a longer nap in the evening (maybe 2 hours). At night she has been going to sleep easily as she always has, but she has only been sleeping in her bassinet for about an hour before waking up. I then nurse her back to sleep and she stays in the bed with us. I *think* she nurses 2-3 times during the night. I say *think* because we dream feed and I never fully awake. I'm not too upset about it since I'm still getting just as much sleep, but I don't want her to become accustomed to our bed. We just moved the crib into our room and moved out the bassinet. We will see how well she sleeps now that she has a little more room!

 
Movement: She is sitting up so well! She hasn't toppled over hardly at all. Sometimes she will kind of do this leaning thing until she rolls onto her side, but I think she does this when she is tired of sitting up. She doesn't seem to have any interest in crawling. She can roll anywhere she wants to go and most of the time she is just content sitting in one place as long as she has some toys around her.

Product: Hensley has been taking a bottle in the morning while I'm at work for about 3 months now. Tae never took a bottle and she fought us when we tried. Hensley seems to enjoy her bottle with her daddy and even tends to fall asleep during her feeding. We only have one kind of bottle, we actually only have 2 of them since she doesn't get a whole lot of bottle feedings. You can find them here. They are glass bottles that are natural flow. I really like them and Hensley does too!

Highlight: She is learning all sorts of different noises. She has learned to complain, whine, giggle, and babble. She sounds like she says "mama" a lot, but I'm sure it's just baby talk. We have taught her to sign milk (or what we call "milky"). She does it randomly and does it a lot when she sees me, haha. I guess that's why she loves me so much, I am the milk!

Taelyn: Tae is continuing to do great with being a big sister. She is learning patience and even tolerates when Hensley grabs a big chunk of her hair. She likes to "watch over" Hensley while I'm going to the bathroom or loading the dishes. She loves to be my helper and get me the things that I need.

Blessing: These two girls bring so much joy to my life and to everyone else's. I worried so much about how far apart they were and even just having another child to begin with. I don't know why I wasted so much time worrying over nothing. God has definitely shown me to have faith in His plan. I am so happy to have Taelyn and Hensley in my life, they make me complete.

Monday, December 2, 2013

Wrapping up November!

We've had some warmer days this fall and we spent some quality family time down at Lake Texoma. My husband has been going down to his family's lake house since he was a kid and he has some great memories there. We recently acquired the property and are currently working on fixing the place up (thanks mom and dad!)

Tae got a cool necklace making kit for her birthday. She's been having fun making necklaces for all her friends and family.

Tae has been having a lot of fun putting her Christmas list together this year. Here she is going through a toy magazine. I think she pointed out everything on every page! Hensley was picking out her own things as well.

We had such a good Thanksgiving. We got to have a yummy feast cooked by my mom. We also had a great time visiting with family. My little Hensley has become quite the picture poser. She gets so excited when I get the camera out. She is definitely following in the footsteps of her sister!

Like I mentioned above, Taelyn sure loves to pose and show off. She had a lot of fun on Thanksgiving as well. She always has loads of fun playing with her cousins.

Check out my moms pretty table set up. We had a lot of people there (24 I think). There is a kids table in the corner. Hensley had fun playing on a carpet while we ate.

Look at all these desserts! My mom truly out did herself like she does every year. She made pecan pie, pumpkin pie, caramel apple pie, pumpkin bread, and gluten free brownies. Everything was delicious as always.

We finished off November by going to a hockey game. It was Tae's first time to see a hockey game and she was super excited. They were handing out these silly sticky mustaches and all the cousins had fun wearing them. Hensley slept in the carrier for about half the game. The other half she laughed and played in my lap.
 
We are so looking forward to December and all the fun memories we will be creating. Miss Hensley turns 6 months, we will be having my niece and nephew for almost a week, my moms annual Christmas cookie exchange is coming up, and of course Christmas!

Saturday, November 23, 2013

Frontier Order!

I got a lot of fun stuff this month in my Frontier order. I had to take a couple of the items out of the picture because they are part of a baby shower gift!

This months order included:

Surf Sweets organic gummy worms and watermelon rings
Simply Organic turkey gravy (2)
Unbleached coffee filters
Aura Cacia reviving shower tablets w/ peppermint essential oil
Aura Cacia Pillow Potion essential oil mist
Aura Cacia First Response essential oil
Xylitol toothpaste for Taelyn
Frontier course sea salt

Monday, November 11, 2013

Hensley: 5 months!

Weight: My little chunky monkey is growing like a weed! I'm sure she has tipped over the 18lb mark and last we measured, she was 25 inches. She seems to grow and change a little every day.

Food: My little lady is such a good nursling. She does like to fidget and feel on things while she is nursing. Sometimes I have to hold her hand to keep her from scratching me! She gets one bottle while I am at work and she does well taking that too. The other day my mom was watching her and put a water glass up to her mouth because she kept grabbing for it. Tae scolded her and told her that Hensley can't have food yet, ha! Again, we are not starting Hensley on anything anytime soon.  You can learn more about skipping the cereal here and baby led weaning here.

Ha! Papa and Hensley...does she look like she is starving!?!
Clothes: She is still fitting in 6 month clothes, but we have rotated in some 9 months and other than long sleeves, they fit really well.

Sleep: Sleep has been a little off ever since the time change. She's been wanting to go to bed super early and then is up at odd hours and wakes up pretty early in the morning. She usually takes two naps during the day. They are anywhere between 30 minutes (yikes) and 2 hours (yah!). She's still in the bassinet and comes to our bed in the middle of the night. We need to start thinking about transitioning her to her crib soon, but we might hold off for another few months.

Movement: Sitting up is our newest addition in our movement category. She is a little wobbly, but does pretty good at steadying herself. She can scoot now too and can move pretty fast if she wants to. The other day she scooted about 3 feet to get to the Kindle :)

Product: I don't think we've gotten anything new this month. She really loves her jumper and has become very interested in toys, especially ones that make noise!

Highlight: Sitting up is a pretty big highlight this month. She also really loves little kids and will just giggle while she's watching them. It's so much fun seeing her become so interactive!

Taelyn: Oh my sweet Tae. Not only is she turning 5, but she is also becoming a great big sister. She is always so loving and kind to Hensley it just melts my heart. I often here her ask Hensley, "what's the matter my love" or "watcha doin' my love"....ah my heart just might explode!

Blessing: I think one of the biggest blessings this month is that Hensley has seemed to finally come to terms with being in her car seat. She doesn't cry nearly as much as she used to and for that I feel blessed. Another sweet blessing this month came when our whole family got a pretty yucky cold. Hensley ended up getting a stuffy nose and that was it! I'm so thankful that my breastmilk is helping her immune system!

Sunday, November 10, 2013

Taelyn's 5th Birthday Party


I love planning and putting together birthday parties! I don't like doing popular themed stuff, but as Tae has gotten older, that seems to be what interests her. This year she picked "Littlest Pet Shop" since this is one of her favorite toys. I thought I did a good job of not buying into to all the licensed party decorations, and instead made my own.









My sister helped me make the sign and banner using her fancy cutting machine. Tae also picked out animal print decorations and other items that matched the color choices.










We had goody bags for all the kiddos. We put stickers, organic candy, a wooden toy, and fruit leather in the bags.

My mom did an awesome job on Tae's birthday cake. She asked for an orange flavored cake with a lot of different colored frosting. The cake tasted just as good as it looked!









We had lots of yummy snacks at the party. From fruit and a veggie tray to bunny crackers and salted caramel popcorn. We even had local cheese curds that were delicious! I made these little signs for the food and had Tae's little pets all around.

Hensley was ready to party!











We had Littlest Pet Shop coloring pages out and the craft was to decorate your own pet carrier to take home. All the kiddos enjoyed this. We also played a game similar to musical chairs called Musical Lily Pads. I had three prizes, so we played three times. The kids seemed to have fun, even though some got a little upset when they didn't win. Tae actually won the first game and picked out a set of puppy erasers!


 Taelyn got tons of awesome birthday presents and we enjoyed spending time with our family and friends. I still can't believe my baby is going to be 5 in just a few days. Seems like only yesterday she was that little bitty baby that stole our hearts.




Friday, November 1, 2013

Halloween 2013

I am super bummed that I don't have very many pictures of Halloween. My cat knocked my camera off a chair onto our tile floor while we were carving pumpkins and the lens broke :(

I did get some pictures though and the rest I stole from my mom....thanks mom!

 Hensley had a fun time watching us carve our pumpkins. We usually do it outside, but this year it was a little too cold to do that. We laid out a bunch of newspaper and got to work.
 
 

Here is Hensley with her pumpkin! Hers was too little to carve, so we bought this nifty sticker kit. I love how she cheeses for the camera now!
 
This was the last picture my camera took :( I was sad I didn't get any of our pumpkins all carved. They turned out so good.
 
I had to work a few hours on Halloween night so my mom and dad kept the girls. Hensley took a super long nap which was good. Tae enjoyed watching The Crood's, passing out Halloween candy, and even got to visit with her cousins when they came over to Trick or Treat!
 
When I got back, I took Tae out trick or treating. Hensley came along in her stroller and she did so good. We probably went to about 15 houses or so and then Tae decided she was done and she had to go potty.
 

When we got back I looked through her candy and she got to pick out a piece to eat. We do the "switch witch", so she ends up with mommy approved candy/treats the next day. It was a Happy Halloween!

Friday, October 18, 2013

Lately.....

This is my absolute favorite time of the year. I love the cooler temperatures, hoodies, cuddles, crock pot meals, Starbucks' salted caramel mocha, all the fun movies on TV, family time, and all the birthday's and holiday's that come in the fall and winter (Tae is one of them!). We have already had a busy start to the fall. My aunt and uncle came in for a visit from New York. We had a lot of fun hanging with them. We also celebrated my oldest nephew's 18th birthday. Tae's been having loads of fun in her homeschool PE class. She loves getting to play with all the other kids. I have been on fall break this week. I am so blessed to have a job that gets so many breaks throughout the year. I love spending this time with my family.
Tae has been a lot more interested in holding Hensley lately. I think she likes that Hensley is a lot more sturdy and more social. Tae has a lot easier time getting her to laugh than Aaron or I do!
We tried out the back carry in our Boba for the first time the other day. Having her on my back makes it a lot easier to do things like cook and clean. She seems to like it, but has yet to fall asleep this way. We tried the back carry on Aaron and she was not having any part of that!
 Of course, we Oklahomans are all ready for the start of basketball season. Here is Hensley sporting her Thunder onesie from her beloved Aunt Lyndsey.
 I love how Tae is always posing for pictures. She is so sassy and sweet. I can't believe she is going to be 5 less than a month from now. Time has gone by so fast and it makes me scared to know that it will go by just as fast with Hensley.

Coming up in the next few weeks we have Early Bird classes (kindergarten prep), a couple family birthday's, Halloween, and of course, my Tae bug's birthday.